


About You

by BrosleCub12



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Anxiety, Crossover, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Zimmermann's Overdose, Life Before Samwell, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 10:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14494725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrosleCub12/pseuds/BrosleCub12
Summary: Honestly? Jack’s Papa has done some weird things in his time, but nothing as weird as this.





	About You

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly? I couldn't resist. True story: I actually have another Check Please/Doctor Who fic to finish but this one kind of wrote itself, ha. It was enormous fun and kind of nice. Unbeta'ed, so all mistakes are mine. Set before life at Samwell and trigger warnings for Jack's overdose and anxiety. 
> 
> I own neither Check Please nor Doctor Who; they're the property of Ngozi and the BBC, respectively.

* * *

 

_It's all about your cries and kisses_

_Those first steps that I can't calculate_

_I need some more of you to take me over_

_I've no idea 'cause I can't calculate_

_How to start again_

_It's all about you._

\- 'Chances,' Athlete. 

 

* 

‘Sorry everyone!’ blurts out the man who swoops into the locker-room in an abundance of colour – brown jacket made of tweed, red bowtie and chocolate hair, flopping over his eyes – waving around a piece of paper that he shows to everyone in range. ‘Department of uh, Sportsing and uh, Hockeyness. Yes, big Hockeyness, _huge!’_

He waves his arms out to demonstrate the apparent hugeness, the words pushing sheer _sound t_ hrough his teeth. Jack thinks the world’s gone mad; madder than usual, that is.

His father, though. His father has gone completely still beside him and then – then he’s moving, when no-one else in the room seems to have a clue what to do, an utterance of something like memory on his lips.

‘Doctor…’

‘Bob!’ The man points at him, voice awash with something like glee, grinning fit to burst and before Jack’s – and the rest of the locker-room’s – very amazed eyes, Bob is coming forward to shake the man’s hand, his own, slightly scarred face grinning, brown eyes dancing in delight. Security, who have come galloping in after the man, immediately, quietly retreat at Bob’s assurance of ‘It’s alright, I know him’; Bad Bob’s reputation off the ice for making trusted friends and being a close confidante – as well as friendly with the fans – is well-known. Jack’s, not so much.

Still; this man isn’t someone who Jack’s seen before – he’s British, for one thing, his accent standing out by a mile and while Jack does know his father has one or two British players’ names in the address-book, courtesy of a long career and appealing, easy-going attitude, he’s fairly sure he would remember this particular man, who seems… wild, somehow, despite the smart clothing. Out of place, dark colours contrasting with the uniformed colours of the players in the room. It’s as if he’s escaped from somewhere.

Yet, Papa is undaunted and Jack watches, something unpleasant uncurling in his gut at the ease of this stranger’s interaction with his famous father, warring with total surprise at what happens next: some sort of dance as the two hop their way around each other, each seeming to treat the other as a totem-pole – some sort of in-joke, it seems (the unpleasant feeling curls higher) some sort of pre-understood greeting as they circle each other in friendliness.

Honestly? Jack’s Papa has done some weird things in his time, but nothing as weird as this. He and the strange man are talking, catching up it seems, oblivious to all eyes on them – or Jack’s at least. Some of the other players in the room smile at each other, a shared, casual awe of Jack’s Papa that often motivates the bulk of their interaction with Jack himself, _what’s it like having Bad Bob for a dad?_ Gradually, though, everyone starts to step away, beginning to mind their own business once more. Jack wishes Kent could see this, check he’s not imagining things, but he’s gone out to refill his water-bottle.

‘…brings you round these parts, Doctor?’ his father is saying, smile wide and easy; Jack is instantly gripped by fear. Doctor? Another doctor? For Jack? Does his father suspect he hasn’t been sleeping again; that his chest has been tight, as tight as a vice? Does he know about the thoughts rollercoasting around his head night after night after night?

This… Doctor though, this man in a tweed jacket and bowtie, simply shrugs, bending backwards, spreading his hands wide and nearly knocking over one of Jack’s linemates. ‘Oh, you know. Jumped off an island cove – well, not an island cove, more of a giant planet shaped like a skull, accidentally on purpose started a laser show for some guitar-playing robots, then had a taste for some good old American twinkies _and decided to just pop over.’_ The last few words flit away into something vaguely resembling a… possible(?) Texan accent, complete with a hand making a whooshing motion in midair and Jack winces, the sheer noise of the man kind of irritating.

‘I must say that’s very you,’ Bob’s eyes are twinkling in amusement, ‘but you are aware this is Quebec?’

‘Is it?’ The apparent Doctor stops dancing, glances around them. ‘Oh well. And you must be Jack!’ He changes tack, changes focus, launches himself forwards towards the boy’s bench; it’s alarming and Jack does what he does when someone skates towards him on the ice – clutches his hockey stick and braces himself. The strange man in the tweed and bowtie, though, simply stops right in front of him like a bike skidding to a halt, and offers the same hand he offered his father. Jack looks at the hands; they’re long, almost-pale things. He wonders if the man plays hockey, or any other sport.

His father murmurs something in French, an assent. ‘It’s okay, Jack, he’s just a friend.’ There’s a gentle warning in the way he tips his head at him: _be nice._

Something in the stranger’s face softens; when Jack looks up, unwillingly – hates looking into people’s faces too long, but his father always tells him to _maintain eye contact, maintain eye contact Jack and it’ll get easier,_ but how can he when the person looking at him may be sussing him out, wondering what all the others are wondering: if he’s as good as his father? If they’re looking past his eyes and into that grey fog, as cloying as cotton candy and nowhere near as sweet, that claws his stomach, his chest, sending him flying to the bathroom for the second time in an hour or leaving him unable to _breathe?_ Kent’s the only exception; the only one he feels any kind of safe with, the only one he feels he can be himself with.

But, the Doctor’s smile is a wide thing that reaches from ear to ear and yet his eyes are curiously light, twinkling like stars. ‘Good to meet you, Jack,’ he declares, sounding very much like he means it, shaking vigorously without breaking eye-contact and then he puts a hand, brief and curiously soft, to Jack’s shoulder. Jack is left – not shaken, exactly, but odd. Moved, by something in the man’s face; as if he _knows._

‘So, Bob!’ The spell is broken, the Doctor turns. ‘I know there’s a match about to happen, but actually, as I was passing by, I’m afraid I picked up a tiny bit of a distress symbol.’

Bob blinks; then his face slackens, his eyes close, hand rising to cover them. ‘Oh, no...’

‘I’m afraid so.’ The Doctor pats his shoulder consolingly. ‘I’m really sorry, but there’s actually a four-hundred-year-old creature that’s been hibernating under the ice and she’s just woken up.’

*

What happens next is… hazy. Jack has tried to remember, but he can’t. All he can grasp in his mind’s eye is this: the rink is broken.

The rink is broken, shattered to a million pieces like glass, scattered everywhere like a thousand fallen stalactites. The ice – precious and beautiful and the smoothest part of his life he has ever known – is destroyed, completely ruined; a huge hole caverns where they could have been achieving shut-outs right this second. Instead, no-one is allowed on the ice.

‘Might have to reschedule the match,’ the Doctor calls from the far side, waving around some silly little toy in his hand; one that makes an irritating buzzing noise that Jack can hear even across the ruined rink. It grates at him, scrapes the sides of his head, irritates him and he clenches his fist so tight he can feel fingernails biting his palm.

All week. All week he had been preparing for this game – him and Kent, strategizing and planning, waking up early every single day to train. And then this… this man, this Doctor, just had to come swaggering out of nowhere with his stupid hair and ridiculous jacket and tie and do… _this,_ as if he had some sort of right to derail everything.

He doesn’t realise he’s made to go forwards until his father has put a hand, firm to his shoulder, to stop him. Jack half-expects a rebuke, but when he looks up into his Papa’s face, he’s staring down at him kindly, rubbing the back of his neck in the way he does when he knows Jack is getting stressed.

‘There’ll be other matches,’ he tells him softly, in their shared language. ‘It’s just one game. We can make it up.’

‘He destroyed the rink,’ Jack protests, salty mist hazing his vision – and he hates, he hates how petulant he sounds, like the spoilt hockey prince that some accuse him of being, but he’s grasping his skates in one hand, longing to use them, to feel the ice easing a path beneath his feet. But now there’s nowhere to skate to, so: what’s the point?

‘He saved a lot of lives,’ his father smiled gently, and Jack scowls, only just managing to resist throwing his skates down.

And that’s it.

Skip forwards to the next morning and the ice is repaired, inexplicably, unexplained, not a shred out of place. The only indicator that anything unusual ever happened the day before is a folded note left in the locker room – silver ink and blue paper – that Jack, first in, picks up and reads.

There’s a lot of rambling, a lot of apologies for destroying the ice in the first place and how necessary it was. It’s never necessary to destroy ice in Jack’s opinion, but there you go. There’s also a post-script, addressed specifically to Jack and he sits down in front of his locker, frowning, to read it.

_You’re going to be brilliant. I know it’ll feel hard at times, but you will be so, so brilliant. – The Doctor._

Jack doesn’t know what to make of that, so he folds up the paper and resolves to show it to his Papa, later. Kent laughs when he tells him about the whole thing and Jack tries to laugh too and make light of it, but the words _‘you will be’_ lodge somewhere in the back of his mind, like hope perhaps and he holds onto them for a little while, perhaps a little desperately and tries to believe them.

*

Hospital and rehabilitation aren’t nice. Kent going off to the draft in Jack’s place isn’t nice. Staring at the ceiling and knowing just how much he’s disappointed his parents, his coaches, the entire world of hockey, isn’t nice.

It’s over. He’s completely let himself down and it’s over.

He stares into the spaces of the empty room for hours – a private room, the best his father’s money from two decades on the ice can buy – seeing the headlines, seeing the scandals that will unfold, the speculation. He wonders what Kent will say to his teammates and lets it follow him into scraps of sleep, before he wakes up again and nothing’s changed.

He still remembers gasping for breath on a bathroom floor; still remembers the paramedics, the panic building in his chest, _oh no oh no what have I done,_ the blinding lights over his head, Kent yelling. He still remembers that terrible phone-call.

Should have just let the pills take him, he considers – then remembers the look on his Maman’s face, the comforting hand she laid on his sobbing father’s back and hates himself even more.

So he lies there and he responds to nurse’s questions with grunts and he drinks water and he’s carefully monitored by IV lines and falls into restless, short dozes that never last.

And nothing changes.

*

Until of course, something _does._

*

It happens in the middle of the night: he’s lulled from his uneasy drowsing by the strangest noise and he wonders, somewhere in the conscious, heavy part of his mind, if there are road-works outside. But this a whooshing noise, almost guttural and it snaps his eyes open, his head flitting around the room, thinking he’s dreaming –

There is a strange, very strange, very large box in the middle of the room. A man stands beside it in outline; legs crossed and arms, too. He’s very tall and very familiar; Jack recognises that hair.

‘Doctor…’ he tries, sure he’s hallucinating; this has got to be a side-effect of the drugs, right, of the stress, the overdose, the whole damn thing that’s flushed his hockey career down the toilet? This is just another part of it, right?

The Doctor though – the Doctor doesn’t disappear into a dream. He just unfolds his arms, steps forward, shoes squeaking slightly against tile, a very real outline against the dim light of the room. Jack fumbles for the bedside light, desperately seeking out the switch; when he does, it throws the Doctor’s appearance into light relief. And yes, there he is, completely unchanged to the last time Jack saw him, nearly a year ago now: he could swear it’s the exact same tweed jacket, he’s wearing, the exact same bowtie. Or maybe he’s just too tired to think.

As the Doctor silently steps closer to the edge of the bed, Jack draws backwards, intimidated and unsure what to expect, convinced of… of disappointment, maybe, the automatic response from everyone now, even those who don’t know him. But all the Doctor does is smile.

‘Hello, Jack.’ He grins lopsidedly down at him, something friendly in his voice under that accent and then he sits down on the edge of the bed, next to Jack’s feet. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Erm…’ Jack’s not sure; wonders if this is a trap. What if this friend of his father’s isn’t actually a friend at all, just some undercover reporter who’s hoping to get a story, who wormed his way into his father’s good books, found his way into the hospital? It’s happened before; his father confided in him, early on, that knowing who to trust in this career can be very difficult and Jack had swallowed, realised that was yet another thing to add to his already massive checklist of _Things to Worry About Whilst Training for the NHL._

But. But the Doctor doesn’t seem to have any kind of equipment on him to suggest such a thing – no cameras or notebook in sight and for someone who’s just managed to sneak into the hospital, he’s _very_ visible. Instead he’s just… making himself at home, leaning on his hands, shoulder slightly hunched, swinging his feet a little. Those eyes, like planets, are soft, but unblinking, unapologetically fixed on Jack. But they don’t feel spiteful, not like some of the looks sent his way: _so you think you can be as good as your father, eh? Prove it, then - you who came out of the womb fat and completely cross-eyed,_ memories of stray paparazzi pictures in magazines. His parents had tried to hide it, but still. Jack had _known._ No, something about this man’s face simply feels… universal. 

‘I’m…’ Jack’s words fail him; he finds his attention caught by the box, a big dark intrusion in the middle of the room. ‘Sorry, what _is_ that?’ He realises, belatedly, that that’s probably the longest sentence he’s said in… hours. Days, even.

‘Oh, that!’ The Doctor stands – Jack finds himself missing the companionable contact – strides over to it. Struggling upright in bed, Jack watches him pat the side of it. ‘That’s just my, erm…police-box.’

‘Oh,’ Jack blinks. ‘Are you – are you a policeman?’ It makes sense somehow; Doctor might be an undercover name. Maybe his father helped him with a case in the past, maybe that’s how they know each other? But then…

‘Isn’t that an old thing? I mean,’ he corrects himself hoarsely, hastily. ‘They used to be around in the twentieth century, from the 1920s – at least in your country. I know they started off in the United States in the late 1900s…’ He trails off, wonders if he’s boring the man; the Doctor probably already knows all this already, doesn’t need some eighteen-year-old spouting random facts from a textbook at him.

‘Just… they’ve stopped, haven’t they?’ he finishes lamely. ‘I thought they’d stopped them, that’s all.’

The Doctor’s face, however, curves into a smile and Jack is reminded, very uncomfortably, of a Cheshire Cat.

‘Your dad mentioned you like history,’ he leans back against the end of the bed, gives a thumbs-up and it sounds like praise. ‘Particularly World Wars 1 and 2. Churchill,’ he whistles. ‘Sneaky character, Winston, but you’ve gotta love him. Particularly good at table tennis.’

Jack smiles nervously, just a little unsure, tries to remember if he read that fact in any of the history books in his room. ‘Yeah, he’s, uh…an interesting figure,’ he shrugs bashfully, unable to help contemplating the fact that Kent, while never exactly mocking Jack for his interest in the past precisely, was ( _is,_ he reminds himself, it’s not like he’s died) always very much in the present, often urging Jack to stop thinking and do the same – right before the obvious occurs to him.

‘Wait – _how the hell_ did you get your box in here?!’

‘Stairs,’ the Doctor says shortly and then rejoins Jack on the bed. ‘I thought about bringing you some grapes, but the only ones I could find came from 23rd century planet Neptune and they tend to be a bit carnivorous. Can’t really have a brilliant hockey career if you’re missing your head. Well, I suppose you can, they manage it okay in Gadashia, but this is Earth. People are bound by rules and regs.’

None of that makes a lot of sense to Jack but there’s one part that makes even less sense than the rest.

‘I’m not going to _have_ a brilliant hockey career,’ he snaps, the reality of his situation crashing back into him, the temporary distraction vanished. ‘I’m done, don’t you see that? They don’t want me.’

‘No, they just can’t have you,’ the Doctor shrugs and it hurts, but then he continues, ‘Not right now. You need to get yourself better. And then, oooh…’ He looks just a little wicked, for some reason. ‘Jack Zimmermann, a player in his own right. You’ll go far.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Jack snaps, a sudden overlap of frustration making him extremely rude; all he gets in return is a raised eyebrow.

‘Don’t I.’ It’s knowing and annoying, like everything about the man and suddenly, Jack really wants him to go away, opens his mouth to say so –

Except, he’ll be on his own, stuck with his thoughts again and to be honest, this man, this Doctor, is the only visitor he’s had who’s not his parents, who’s not cried by his bedside. Who’s actually been talking to him about other things besides hockey; something Jack didn’t realise until now that he desperately needed. None of the other kids in Junior Hockey League have come to see him; Jack’s very swiftly realised as a result of this that he doesn’t actually have all that many friends and the one he did have is no longer here.

‘They can’t – I won’t be able to play after this,’ he rewinds to take his mind off this particularly unpleasant fact – not that the alternative is a lot better. He indicates himself. ‘I’ve failed.’ The F-word finally pushes its way past his lips; the one he’s been running from for years, the one that’s chased him with its teeth bared, slobbering in anticipation, a juicy headline, the boy of one of the NHL’s top players crashing and burning, a _joke_ for thinking he could follow in his father’s footsteps.

His shoulders fall; he puts his head in his hands, slowly, the weight of it, of _that word,_ bearing down on him like a few dozen hockey trophies being thrown away, tossed down on top of him, burying him alive underneath and he says it again, dully testing the word on his tongue as preparation for the long days ahead. ‘I’ve failed.’

‘You didn’t fail. You made a mistake,’ the Doctor holds out a crooked hand towards him as though soothing a wounded animal. ‘It was a _mistake,_ Jack. You can come back from it.’  

‘How am I supposed to do that?’ Jack demands; he’s very aware, at the back of his mind, that there’s a therapist booked for him whom he’s required to talk to and whom he very determinedly doesn’t want to. Can’t face up to making himself strip back the layers of fog and anxiety that dog him so many days, that he can’t seem to just shake off no matter how hard he’s tried to just forget about it and drop the puck. ‘I just told you: _they don’t want me.’_ He’s an outcast now. The door has been slammed in his face and he knows what people are already saying about him out there: _addict, cokehead, good boy gone bad, disgrace to his father._

If this was a mistake, then it was a pretty big one.

‘They will, though,’ the Doctor tells him, steadfast in his own unbelievable belief; hasn’t he been around the last few days? Hasn’t he seen what’s happened? ‘A few years’ time, they’ll all want you. And you won’t even need to be your father’s son to do it; you can just be yourself, be the man that you are, that perfect combination of skill and DNA,’ his hands make shapes in midair, as though trying to grasp something that he can’t contain, ‘will make you absolutely unbeatable.

‘But for now,’ he changes tack abruptly, sits back down on the bed, closer to Jack this time. ‘You need to get yourself better. I don’t mean better on the ice,’ he interrupts as Jack inhales to speak and his mouth falls shut again, unable to believe that this Doctor knew exactly what he was going to say; instead, he reaches over and touches Jack’s head before he can scoot away, ruffles Jack’s hair in a fashion that’s almost brotherly. ‘Better in _there.’_

Jack opens his mouth; closes it; opens it again. ‘I.’ He swallows; stares at the sheets, realises too late he’s gripping them far, far too hard between his fists. It’s kindness, he realises, a foggy dew shading his eyes and a lump in his throat. It’s being spoken to like a person, not like a minor celebrity. It’s someone laying it all out on the table: that Jack’s ill. That he’s been ill for a very, very long time. That there’s been talk of therapy, of gentle exercise, rehabilitation – but _nothing_ about a cure.

It breaks something in Jack, like a hole in a dam.  

He winces in embarrassment as the first tears hit the cotton sheets covering his lap and he’s sure the Doctor, being a guy and all, will turn away, pretend not to see. Instead, both of those hands, long and pale, are drifting into his hazy vision to cover his knuckles, tight over the bedsheets – in a way that feels completely unsexual, or amorous; simply anchoring – and a gentle noise like wind is drifting from the Doctor’s mouth, a shushing sound, a simple means to comfort.

‘I don’t know _how_ to make this better, Doctor,’ Jack manages finally, choking on a sob, because he doesn’t. It all seems completely impossible; making up with Kent after that last conversation they had; reassuring his parents that he’s fine, all fine; shaking off the dog that slobbers around him, ready to bark out his failures. Returning to the ice.

‘Start by getting some sleep.’ The Doctor twinkles kindly at him, unjudging; keeps one of Jack’s hands in his own as he pulls the other one away to wipe roughly at his eyes, before reaching into his own tweed pocket and tugging out a piece of cloth – a handkerchief, Jack notes, a rather nice-looking navy one with stars sprinkled at every corner.

‘Guess you really _are_ British, eh?’ he chirps weakly, wiping his eyes; the cotton feels incredibly soft against his cheeks – and then he wonders if that was insulting. The Doctor just chuckles, his cheeks rising like a full moon.

‘More or less. Oh, keep it,’ he waves the handkerchief aside as Jack makes to return it, slightly dampened and then the slight humour drops away and he looks straight into his eyes. ‘Now – leave tomorrow alone.’ He reaches out and before Jack can ask what he’s doing, his palm is back on his hair, cupping his head before trailing down to his forehead, tucking the sheets up around Jack’s body, his accent lilting, broadening, softening.

‘Start with tonight, Jack,’ he murmurs, ‘and just let that brain, that body of yours…’ his hand slips over Jack’s eyes, shielding his vision, shielding everything – the bland walls, the windows with the safety locks, the IV line – the Doctor’s voice is the only anchor, ‘get some _rest.’_

It should be frightening; should be. Jack’s never liked being blinded; likes to see, to observe, to _know._ But the Doctor’s voice is low and soothing like a constant whisper, something for him to hang onto in the dark and his hand somehow feels kind against Jack’s eyes; he fancies he can feel a thousand lifelines in those long hands, a million stars in the sky, a blackness soothed by the swirling lights and purples and blues of a universe still-turning, still-functional…

Jack Zimmermann falls asleep to images of the Milky Way and the lilting, tender hum of the solar system, singing him into a deep slumber, his body finally relaxing, breathing deeply in a way he hasn’t for days, up and down, up and down, his heartbeat slowing under a loosening chest.

The Doctor stands, silently and carefully lays Jack down on his back once more, tucks the blankets a little higher around him – he’s just a boy, a frightened boy and he still remembers how it feels to cry alone in the dark. He watches him sleep for a long moment, before he finally turns and leaves the ward, lets the TARDIS stand guard over the lonely figure in the bed for a moment as he strides down the hall, thinking things through.

‘Doctor?’

He turns with a smile, a sad one, as Bob Zimmermann comes clattering up the corridor, face pinched, the look of a man who hasn’t slept in days, all-too-similar to Jack’s. The look of a man terrified for his child and one that the Doctor knows very well.

‘Hello, Bob,’ he greets, putting a hand to the man’s shoulder in consolation as well as comfort. It’s been a bad week for them, but it won’t last. ‘You ought to go home.’

Bob shakes his head. ‘I can’t leave him, Doctor, I can’t – I just can’t believe I didn’t see this coming.’ His hands are over his eyes; he looks as though he wants to cry again. The next second, they’re lowered again and he’s narrowing them at the Doctor, his face suddenly wary, a far cry from the young man who once helped to find an alien intruder and return him to his home planet.

‘Did you know?’ he asks slowly, a creeping, deep suspicion colouring every word. ‘Did you know this was going to happen?’ And when the Doctor doesn’t reply, he pushes: ‘You told me once I didn’t need to come and see the stars with you, because I’d be busy making my own down here.’

His voice drips with a very low mockery of the words spoken to him so long ago, to which the Doctor’s heavy silence is confirmation. Furious, he snarls.

‘You _did._ Why didn’t you warn me when we first met? Why didn’t you help?’

‘I am helping,’ the Doctor snaps, youthful face twisting, caught between anger and admiration because Bob Zimmermann loves his son universally, unconditionally; a few paradoxes mean nothing. ‘Right here, right now, I’m helping.’ He glances at Bob meaningfully, ‘You didn’t know you were going to have a son when we first met, Bob. There are certain things in life that can’t be changed –’

‘How is my son suffering a fixed point?’ Bob argues; the Doctor puts a finger to his lips, nodding back towards Jack’s room. Distracted momentarily, Bob glances across.

‘What – is he sleeping?’

‘Finally,’ the Doctor agrees. ‘And no, Bob. This isn’t a fixed point. I didn’t say that. This is just a thing that happens – has happened. A mistake, that a young, scared, very unwell human-being makes because it seems like the best thing to do at the time. You remember,’ he eyes Bob keenly and watches Jack’s father sober, eyes glazing in memory, harkening back to a time, a very long time ago, when he walked out of a locker-room an hour before a game was due to start and met a young man in tweed and a bowtie right outside the door who marched him straight back in.

‘He’s a child, Bob,’ he chides, gently, ‘He’s a child of the universe and he’s learning it, like we all do, like we should be allowed to do –  hang the spotlight, hang the headlines. They’ve all been too busy writing fairytales for him for too long. Humans are nostalgic creatures, they like to see the best parts of the best people being passed down, so they can watch history repeat itself and hang onto what they know – at least, what they want to remember. Imagine, Bob. Imagine what that does to a boy.’

Bob is silent, looking towards Jack’s room. ‘I don’t have to,’ he says finally, in a quiet voice and the Doctor nods; he knows. Of course, he does.

‘He can learn so much about the world,’ he tells him. ‘Do so much. But he’s allowed to make mistakes.’

It’s not that Bob doesn’t know this already. The Doctor remembers watching them sometimes from a distance, just checking in every now and then during the nineties: the French lullabies that Bob used to sing to his son; drying his tears; Jack’s first skate. The way that Bob held his hand, the first time he took him on the ice, supporting him, teaching him, watching his every move with pride. He’s not the problem here; he just needs a hand.

With every word, Bob is nodding without realising he’s doing it, a hand creeping to his cheek, the back of his neck, breathing deeply.

‘What do I do?’ he asks finally. ‘To help him? Do you – do you know how this ends?’

‘Be his father,’ the Doctor shrugs, hands in his pockets. ‘He’ll be angry, he’ll be resentful – he’ll probably shout at you, but he’s a boy, a boy who needs his Dad; it’ll be his version of golf.’ When he speaks next, his voice is on the right side of jovial; gently mocking. ‘Good old Bad Bob Zimmermann is a hit with the fans and a ruler on the ice; let all that go for now and just focus on Jack.’

Bob looks caught, conflicted but the fact is, they made the pact a long time ago – _never tell me what’s coming, I like to be surprised_. Finally, his shoulders drop, and he nods, accepting this as all he’s going to get for now.

‘I’d better… I’m just going to go and sit with him for a bit,’ he murmurs; the Doctor nods. He’s never doubted Bob’s devotion to his son – no-one ever should – and even the best parents make errors of judgement. Even on Gallifrey, they made them.

But this, no, this is good. This is hopeful. Ultimately, human-beings write their own stories.

He could tell them more, he reflects, walking him back down the corridor to Jack’s room. He could tell him about the others – bound to be brothers- and sisters-in-arms, from Canada, from Boston, from as far away as Russia. He could explain that there’s a boy in Georgia somewhere, a small boy who’s as scared as Bob’s son is right now, shivering in the dark. Who was locked in a closet not too long ago and is afraid to be touched and will be for a long time. That boy will keep growing like a flower and eventually he’ll grow into Jack’s orbit and in a few years’ time, he’ll make Jack the happiest he’s ever been.

But first? Jack has to learn to make _himself_ happy. Might take time, but he’ll get there. 

He thinks on all this, watching Bob sit himself down by Jack’s bed, watching over him in sleep and keeps it to himself – they’re not his stories to tell, after all.

Instead, he proclaims, ‘He’ll be fine, Bob,’ a simple reassurance, and taps the side of the TARDIS. ‘Sure I can’t give you a lift?’

Bob grins up at him, tiredly, finally content, at least for tonight. ‘I’m not setting foot back in that thing after last time, Doctor.’

‘I told you, the sat-nav was infected with a virus – ‘

‘That ended up eating half my father-in-law’s house.’

‘We got it fixed before he got home,’ the Doctor waves a hand around and throws a smile over his shoulder as he unlocks the TARDIS door. ‘See you, Bob.’

‘Au revoir, Doctor,’ Bob murmurs, understanding the hasty retreat of a man who feels he should give a father and a son some time on their own; a traveller who’s done enough for one day. A wave of a long hand and the door shuts with a soft clap. Bob silently watches, a rapid breeze blowing over his face, as the police-box begins to fade away, whooshing noises filling the room, shaking the curtains, the medical charts, anything flimsy enough to be disturbed. Then it’s gone, dematerialised, as though it was never here, and he drops his gaze from that spot, instead gripping his son’s hand.

Throughout the noise and disturbance, Jack Zimmermann doesn’t even stir, just sleeps; lulled by the sight of a thousand, humming stars, suns the shade of the lightest lemons passing softly over his head and far away planets, like the warmest brown eyes, watching over him in a peaceful, merciful slumber.

*

 


End file.
